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Highway 7 gets its own sign of urbanity: a transit fight

The coming bus rapidway may take the same route as current Viva buses, but some residents are convinced it’s the road to destruction.

Construction proceeds on the Viva bus rapidway along Highway 7 in York Region. Some residents are concerned that the route deviates from Highway 7 through areas they believe are and should stay suburban, but planners disagree. (AMY DEMPSEY / TORONTO STAR) | Order this photo

Thornhill residents Gila Martow, left, and Mark Milunsky are fighting to can the plan for dedicated Viva rapidway bus lanes along Bathurst and Centre Sts. in their neighbourhood. (Amy Dempsey / TORONTO STAR) | Order this photo

Highway 7 is changing. When the road was designated a provincial highway in the 1920s, it was a gateway for city dwellers. For the next nine decades, the road grew with Ontario, from its rural routes to industrial highway. Now, with major investment in public transit, Highway 7 is becoming an urban thoroughfare.

The Star brings you seven tales of the people and places that are a part of the highway’s story. This is Part 6.

“Stop me if I talk too fast,” says Gila Martow, interrupting herself to shoot me this warning as I climb into her beige SUV.

We’re in the parking lot of a Thornhill shopping plaza and Martow is about to take me on a tour of the planned dedicated bus lane route she believes will destroy her neighbourhood.

“I have four kids,” she says, explaining the size of her Honda Pilot SUV as we buckle up. “Boy, boy, boy, girl.” Aged 15 to 25.

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The route in question is only a small part of the Viva bus rapidway that will stretch across Highway 7, connecting the Vaughan Metropolitan Centre with town centres in Richmond Hill and Markham. Martow and a contingent of local residents who have taken up the cause are not against the rapidway itself, but rather the planned route of the dedicated centre lanes through their neighbourhood — from Highway 7 south down Bathurst St. and west across Centre St.

Martow, 51, an optometrist who ran for council in the last municipal election, calls it a “detour” that will disrupt the flow of traffic, force cars onto residential streets and cost more than it’s worth. She has been comparing it to the controversial St. Clair streetcar project, which prompted struggling businesses along the midtown corridor to launch a lawsuit against the City of Toronto.

She and her supporters want the rapidway to continue along Highway 7 instead of cutting south, and they argue the money would be better spent on the Yonge subway expansion.

As we head east on Centre St. toward the Promenade bus terminal, Martow throws out a scenario she’s been using lately to illustrate her frustration: Joe Bus Rider gets on the rapidway in Markham to head west for work, but is baffled when the driver makes an unexpected turn south into Thornhill.

“I can just picture this poor guy, yelling at the bus driver and saying, ‘What are you doing? What are you getting off the highway for? We’re on Highway 7, what are you doing?’ And the (driver’s) gonna say, ‘Well, we have to go to the Promenade Mall, there’s two old ladies there that want to get on the rapidway.”

Transit officials with YRT-Viva and the local councillor take issue with her position — in particular, the word “detour.”

“That’s a misrepresentation of the facts being tossed about,” Dale Albers, spokesman for YRT-Viva, told me this week when I used the apparently loaded word in an email. “That route has been operational since Viva first launched in 2005 and serves thousands of people every workday just in that stretch alone,” he wrote back. “The alignment is not new, nor a divergence from an existing route — thus not a detour.”

The route plan is based on an environmental assessment that showed the demand for transit — and the projected future demand — is along Centre St., where there is a great deal of development potential. Along the section of Highway 7 the rapidway will bypass in favour of the Thornhill route, there is very little room for intensification and a lower demand for transit, the assessment found. Albers also points out that the rapidway makes similar diversions off Highway 7 through “residential/commercial urban corridors in Markham and Newmarket.”

At the heart of this dispute is a fundamental disagreement over the identity of this little slice of York Region. Is Thornhill-Vaughan a city or a suburb?

“This is a suburb,” Martow says. “We’re getting way ahead of ourselves if we think that in Thornhill, in York Region, people are going to do grocery shopping and take their kid to hockey by bus. Who are we kidding?”

In an effort to get people excited about plans for the new urban streetscape and development that will come with the rapidway, at least one developer called it “the next Yonge Street” and officials have likened it in other ways to a downtown Toronto streetscape. That comparison hasn’t gone over well with some Thornhill residents.

Milunsky, a recent high school graduate, is the newest member of the Beverley Glen Ratepayers Association executive. Together, he and Martow, who is the association’s president, have been pushing to have the route changed. They recently convinced local Progressive Conservative MPP Peter Shurman to voice his support for residents.

But it seems unlikely they will get their way. The project is already funded by the province, with construction on Bathurst and Centre Sts. set to begin in 2015 and last two years.

“I appreciate the suburban dream, but the reality is — look around, this a very urban place,” says Alan Shefman, councillor for Vaughan Ward 5, which includes Thornhill. “I guess people really hang on the mythology of the suburbs, but I’m very practical and very pragmatic when it comes to where we live here, and this isn’t suburbs. This is an urban municipality.”

Though Shefman has no official say in the plans for Centre St. because it is a regional road, he supports the rapidway route.

Here’s some context: Shefman and Martow are political foes. Martow ran against him and lost in the 2010 election. He believes she has taken up this cause for political gain; she says it’s because she cares about her community.

Martow has been highly critical of Shefman for supporting the project when, according to her, nearly all local residents are against it. Shefman says he’s spoken to many residents who have voiced their support.

Martow is not against development of the area altogether — in fact, she agrees that Centre St. needs a facelift — but her concern is that the rapidway, which will be transformed into light rail in decades to come, will pave the way for density not suitable for the neighbourhood.

“If there is a rapidway being built down here to look like Highway 7, the OMB (Ontario Municipal Board) will say, ‘Whoo, future light rail? Almost a subway? Rapidway? Sounds really rapid. Yeah, build! Thirty storeys, 40 storeys!’”

For his part, Shefman says he is adamant about limiting density along the large chunk of Centre St. between Dufferin St. and New Westminster Dr. The councillor’s vision for the street is something similar to Disera Dr., a new and well-designed promenade adjacent to the contentious bus route that features, among other things, a Marble Slab Creamery. It has quickly become a popular strolling destination for locals.

But here’s an interesting thing: when asked about her own vision for Centre St., Martow’s answer is the same — Disera. In fact, she drives there to show me the street, raving about how great it is. “We’re so thrilled with it even though it’s one block — they say two blocks but it’s really only one block — we walk up and down here all summer long going to Marble Slab.”

Same street. Same vision. Different ideas on how to get there.

Correction: This article was edited from a previous version that said Gila Martow drove an enormous black SUV. In fact, her vehicle is a beige Honda Pilot, which is classified as a mid-sized SUV.

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